The book covers three categories: classical modernism (Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, Arp, early American abstraction); post-war abstraction (Pollock, Still, Newman, Smithson, Noguchi, Arte Povera, Michaux, postmodern developments); and the broader historical and philosophical scope.
The Triumph of Modernism not only traces the vicissitudes of the art scene but diagnoses the state of modernism and its vital legacy in the postmodern world.
A basic change in the market for advanced art produced a heightened demand for innovation, and young conceptual innovators .... responded not only by creating dozens of new forms of art, but also by behaving in ways that would have been incomprehensible to their predecessors.